


The Taste of Truth

by Eloisa



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-08
Updated: 2012-06-08
Packaged: 2017-11-07 07:53:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/428681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eloisa/pseuds/Eloisa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The start of the ACOK Riverrun dungeon scene, from Jaime’s viewpoint.  Some dark musings ensue.  Arguably Jaime/Catelyn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Taste of Truth

Lamplight burns like the sun in my eyes.  It’s blinding me.  Do you want me blinded?  Crippled?  _Lessened_?  Pain is nothing; hard iron at my wrists, cramp in my legs – I know pain.  Pain and blood are my _friends_.  The fish gains nothing by hurting the lion.

 But what fish is this?  _“Lady Stark.”_   Dry, and frozen, and out of the water too long.  You should not have come back.  Forgotten how to swim: you’ll drown yourself in the Tumblestone.  _“I fear I am in no condition to receive you.”_   Don’t bring the damned light closer.  Would you see me shame myself by covering my eyes?  Very well, you win this round.

  _“Look at me, ser.”_

 Once I looked with a boy’s eyes and a boy’s heart.  Did the boy drown in the blood, or was he already consumed by the fire?  _“The light hurts my eyes.  A moment, if you would.”_

 It hurts – but so does the sight of you.

 The boy is long gone, but whence went the girl?  Catelyn Tully, Catelyn _Stark_ : the north and the wolves have devoured you.  I remember.  Fifteen years old, we were, and you were as fair as spring and as warm as summer and as gloriously russet as autumn.  Winter has come.

 I remember that night, long ago, before the white cloak smothered me.  Your eyes were bright with secrets and your gown blue as the sky.  Then at Winterfell, yes, you were _powerful_ there, all in silver and ice-white with your children around you.  What do the old gods say about mothers?  Even your scorn in the woods was more than this – sick and old and broken in dark woollens.  What broke you, Catelyn?

  _“I see you had no taste for the wine I sent you.”_

 Do you take me for a fool?  _“Such sudden generosity seemed somewhat suspect.”_   That’s it, hold the lamp higher.  I’ll see your eyes in a moment.  Eyes don’t lie.

  _“I can have your head off any time I want.  Why would I need to poison you?”_

 Lady Stark, I am glad that not all women are such liars as you.  Or maybe you are the fool, not I.  You need jingles in your hair to match the jingles in your hips when you walk.  _“Death by poison can seem natural.  Harder to claim that my head simply fell off.”_   I keep the lions away from Riverrun, my lady.  Chain me hand and foot and still I fight, and my only shame is to fight on your side and not my family’s.  _“I’d invite you to sit, but your brother has neglected to provide me a chair.”_

_“I can stand well enough.”_

 Stand as well as you hold that lamp – ah.  I see now.

 The light in your hair mocks the shadows in your heart.  Grief-sick, are you?  Cry some more, woman.  Cry till your tears have swamped this castle.  You started this when you took my brother captive.  Is it _your_ brother dead, now?  Your own doing.  Blood pays for blood.

  _“Can you?”_   Sick little fishes shouldn’t swim out of their stream, and certainly not down here to the darkest waters.  You’re out of your depth, Catelyn.  _“You look terrible, I must say.  Though perhaps it’s just the light in here.”_

 Oh, _now_ I understand.  You should have bound me in golden fetters: they’d have glinted so, so beautifully in the lamplight.  Iron rusts and dimples but never loses its strength.  _“Are my bracelets heavy enough or you, or did you come to add a few more?  I’ll rattle them prettily if you like.”_   Wrist and ankle and I never knew what it was like not to be able to _stand_ : the pain is nothing beside the _lack_ of something that a man takes for granted.

 Mock me, then.  Congratulate yourself in the centre of that sick _nothing_ in your head: you shackled the lion beneath your fortress.  Casterly Rock is deeper than this, and its enmity is as pure as its gold.  I count the days, Lady Catelyn.  I count the _seconds_.  When Tyrion finally frees me I will take the price from you in blood.  Let me see: a fish scale for every minute you kept me down here in mould and damp and filth.  It will serve.

  _“You brought this on yourself.  We granted you the comfort of a tower cell befitting your birth and station.  You repaid us by trying to escape.”_

 Trying?  I didn’t need to try.  Tyrion’s plan: my clever little brother.  Seven defend him while I cannot.  _“A cell is a cell.  Some under Casterly Rock make this one seem a sunlit garden.  One day perhaps I’ll show them to you.”_   Think on that.  Your precious boys, maybe, lying where I lie on dirty straw.  You wouldn’t sneer then.  I wonder what you’d look like, pleading for their release.  Would you cower on the ground in front of me as you force me to crouch at your feet now?

  _“A man chained hand and foot should keep a more courteous tongue in his mouth, ser.”_

 Were you planning to have your men cut it out?  See me stripped and beaten for your revenge?  Hurt me all you like.  You cannot break me.  I am more than you, and more than you could ever conceive.

 Do you see it too?  Red light shines in your eyes as surely as in your hair: _“I did not come here to be threatened.”_

_“No?  Then surely it was to have your pleasure of me?  It’s said that widows grow weary of their empty beds.  We of the Kingsguard vow never to wed, but I suppose I could still service you if that’s what you need.  Pour us some of that wine and slip out of that gown and we’ll see if I’m up to it.”_

 Oh, _yes_.

 Unfetter me and let me stand.  I’d rip that drab dull gown up to your waist and slide my hand between your legs.  Is your hair even brighter down there?  Skin soft as a silken mantle: I’d touch you, drink you, _drown_ in you – lions can’t swim, little fish.

 Think of it.  Imagine.  My hands parting your thighs; my mouth on your slit, and then your nipples; my cock sliding inside your cunt while I push you up against that hard stone wall like we’re rutting animals.  I want to touch your hair.  I want to _smell_ it.  I want to bury my face in it while you wrap your legs round my waist and ride me.  Call me Eddard if you like.  I’ll call you Cersei right back.

 Just for a moment it seems _real_.

 But your face twists like I’ve dipped you in a cesspit.  _“If you said that in my son’s hearing, he would kill you for it.”_

 And the image falls.

 Sunset fire bears no comparison to golden sunbeams.  You haven’t half my Cersei’s curves, you’re closer to pretty than beautiful, and you smell wrong.  There’s far less for you to find in me.  My clothes are rotted rags, I’m covered in fleas, I stink like a sewer, I’ve not shaved in half a year, and I’m too tall and thin for you to pretend I’m anyone other than who I am.  But I’ll keep this moment, however harsh the fantasy.  It’s just one more shield.  Another bulwark in my walls for when you leave me alone in the dark.

 ***

  _“Oh, it’s_ truth _you want?  Be careful, my lady.  Tyrion says that people often claim to hunger for truth, but seldom like the taste when it’s served.”_


End file.
